Who needs Japanese comics when you’ve got the Weekly Hankook Magazine — yes, part of the same media company that owns the English-language Korea Times — to satisfy all your xenophobic needs with headlines like this:
Residential Neighborhoods with Many Foreigners, Lawless Zones when the Sun Goes Down: Scary Night Streets, Foreigner Crimes Rising Daily… High Crime Zones Devoid of Public Authority Appearing
And how’s this for an intro:
“I’m afraid to walk around at night. With herds of foreigners swarming around frightening me, I’m also scared I might be harmed. I firmly warn even my middle school daughter.”
Mrs. Oh (46), a resident of Wongok-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do, a neighborhood that has become known as Korea’s “Borderless Village,” said that as the neighborhood fills up with foreigners, it has grown savage and desolate. Choe In-song (82), who calls himself a Wongok-dong native, said, “As the number of foreigners grows, the neighborhood is growing increasingly disorderly and women are avoiding walking around at night.”
Because, as you know, foreigners love nothing better than to visit outrage upon Korean womanhood.
Although there were differences in degree, most of the Wolgok-dong residents this reporter met were wary of foreign laborers. Some, citing panicky rumors of sexual crimes and violent crimes, expressed animosity [toward the foreign laborers].
Gee, with the Weekly Hankook running winners like this one, I wonder why?
This got my goat, however:
The murder-dismemberment that took place earlier this year in Wolgok-dong had a considerable influence. The bizarre incident, in which a Chinese man who lived in Wolgok-dong killed and dismembered his Korean wife, shocked residents and changed the way people view foreign laborers.
Note to Weekly Hankook — that incident didn’t change a damn thing. People already held the foreign laborers in utter contempt, and the murder just provided them with “justification.”
About a week later, in February, an ethnic Korean from China named Mr. Wang murdered his North Korean defector wife and his son, waking people up to the seriousness of foreigner crime.
Crickey. I mean, if a body count of three in two separate incidents is enough to raise the alarm about foreigner crime, you’d have to figure a foreigner going onto a college campus and blowing away 32 people would warrant at least a mass deportation.
According to the Gyeonggi-do Police Agency, there are 263,000 foreigners living in the province (80,000 illegally). Last year, police arrested 3,150 foreign criminals, a 35.6 percent jump from 2,322 in 2005.
Park Wan-seok, an official from the Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers, which collects and observes examples of foreigner crimes and looks for countermeasures, said, “Even in Korea, there are appearing high-crime zones where public authority doesn’t reach, like Harlem in the United States… In districts with high concentrations of foreigners, when the sun goes down, Koreans — and particularly women — can’t leave their homes freely, and even the police avoid approaching those areas.”
OK, now even I’ve gone on record paraphrasing Chris Rock about the neighborhood (Itaewon) in which I live — when I’m looking over my shoulder at the ATM at night, I’m not looking for OhMyNews. I’m looking for foreigners. That being said, having lived in Washington DC and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (which is a rather pleasant place, actually), I can assure you, Mr. Park, that as bad as Ansan may or may not be, you don’t know what a lawless zone is.
Anyway, one member of the group uploaded a post on its website claiming that a young girl who lived with her grandmother had been abducted and raped by a foreign laborer, and a few days later she was dragged away again and raped by six foreigners.
The article claims that foreigner crimes are growing more diverse and sophisticated. Police stats show that violent crimes committed by foreigners has increased by a factor of 1.5-2 since 2001, while incidents of fraud and forgery have increased ten-fold.
According to the Office of the Supreme Prosecutor, foreigner crime accounted for only 0.4 percent of total crime in 2005, but foreigners accounted for 1.4 percent of total violent crime and 8.4 percent of phone and document forgery.
In particular, said the piece, more and more foreigners from Muslim countries — freed of the rigid religious lifestyles of their homelands — are engaging in crime. In 2004, a Pakistani indentured servant industrial trainee kidnapped a Busan middle school girl back to his room, raped her, and then pimped her out to his colleagues. In September 2005, three Pakistanis were arrested on charges of luring a high-school girl off a Seoul street and gang-raping her.
The article noted that foreigner crime has skyrocketed since the adoption of the industrial trainee system in 1993, and since the beginning of mass immigration of ethnic Koreans from China.
Park claimed that among foreign laborers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, there’s a “manual” going around teaching laborers how to get permanent residency in Korea. The manual allegedly says one way is to get a Korean woman pregnant… in one way or another. He said that there are many criminal instances of foreign laborers preying on mentally ill women, minors and divorced women in a bid to get permanent residency.
In August 2005, a Bangladeshi worker “approached” a 40-year-old mentally ill woman, got her pregnant, and assaulted her family while demanding her hand in marriage. He was eventually booted out of the country.
The story said there was even a case of an illegal migrant worker applying for a marriage license after he impregnated a woman he kidnapped from a home for the handicapped.
Park — concerned citizen he is — warned that in the case of foreigners from Southwest Asia, some come from countries where you can have more than one wife, and it’s easy to forge documents, so there are many instances of Korean women falling victim. Last year in Busan, a 35-year-old furniture factory worker from Bangladesh approached a Korean women in her 20s by claiming he was an exchange student and his father was a wealthy landowner. He seduced the poor girl and eventually married her, but the marriage ended in divorce when his lies were revealed.
Lest you believe it’s only migrant Third World laborers turning the country to shit, foreign English teachers are also a problem. According to hagwon English teacher Mr. Kim from the Citizens’ Alliance for Proper English Education, crimes by foreign teachers have reached a serious level. An English professor at a university in Seoul was famous for his indecent sex life, getting a student pregnant and then forcing her to get an abortion by threatening her with a knife. Yet he was fined only 500,000 won.
Or so the story said.
Meanwhile, there was talk that an American — identified as Mr. R — teaching at a famous English hagwon for children in Seoul was violent, but when a member of the Citizens’ Alliance for Proper English Education made this accusation on the Internet, the good netizen was punished for defamation. I guess there is justice in this universe.
Oh, and lest we forget, foreigner crime is getting more organized as gangs and other illicit organizations move in from places like Uzbekistan, Russia and the Middle East.
Be sure to read the entire thing on your own… assuming you read Korean.
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100 Comments
Define lawless. As lawless as every crosswalk in Korea?
Robert, I imagine you have some contacts/current insight into the local press.
Do you have any idea what’s driving this recent negative coverage?
Harlem 20-30 years ago, but not today.
“OK, now even I’ve gone on record paraphrasing Chris Rock about the neighborhood (Itaewon) in which I live — when I’m looking over my shoulder at the ATM at night, I’m not looking for OhMyNews. I’m looking for foreigners. “
Well, since you live in Itaewon, you would be looking for foreigners. When I used the ATM at night in Seoul, I looked over my shoulder, too, but not for foreigners. Being cautious and observant at the ATM is just good sense.
” In 2004, a Pakistani indentured servant industrial trainee kidnapped a Busan middle school girl back to his room, raped her, and then pimped her out to his colleagues.”
Truly ironic “proof” of a Muslim sex crime wave given the recent sensational case of the runaway girl forced by a Korean man to have sex with 800 other men. Like other women, both foreign and Korean, I was extra careful walking home alone at night and always chose to live in apartments on upper floors. It wasn’t Pakistani sex fiends that I was worried about.
As Korea’s foreign population grows, I think we can expect to see more of this xenophobic journalism.
On a semi-related note, flipping through the channels the other night I caught a preview of this show: (in Korean)
http://www.olivetv.co.kr/pando.....asp?seq=13
I missed the first showing but there’s a bunch of repeats during the week. Looks like must-see TV - I think I’ll try to catch it.
For non-Korean-speakers here’s an excerpt - the opening line of the capsule summary.
“Of the country’s 40,000+ native speaker (language) instructors, would you believe that approximately half are here illegally? And of those, it’s said that more 90% are criminals associated with drugs or violence.
국내 4만여명의 원어민 강사 중 절반 정도가 불법이라면 믿을 수 있겠는가. 그 중 90퍼센트 이상이 마약이나 폭행 등의 범죄자들이라고 한다.
I especially enjoyed the “would you believe” and “it’s said” constructions - nothing like unsupported innuendo for solid journalism.
Well, groups with names like ‘Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers’ certainly don’t sound much like the warm-and-fuzzy, just-between-us-Koreans type xenophobics that abcdefg wrote about recently.
Say, could you clarify, abcdefg?
I’m really considering filing a formal complaint with the human rights commission.
http://www.humanrights.go.kr/eng/index.jsp
Truly ironic “proof” of a Muslim sex crime wave given the recent sensational case of the runaway girl forced by a Korean man to have sex with 800 other men.
I was thinking the same thing. Actually though, the main person responsible for forcing that girl to have sex with those men was actually a 20 year old woman.
I’m curious as to how the foreign crime rate could have begun skyrocketing in 1993 when the trainee system began. Before that the largest group of foreigners would have been US soldiers, and according to anti-migun.org types they were visiting outrage after outrage upon Koreans before that. You’d think an influx of foreign workers spending most of their waking hours at the factory would bring the foreign crime rate down, when compared with all of those horrible, horrible GIs the Korean media and many progressives like to go on about.
How often do Korean factory owners treat their foreign workers horribly? I suppose that’s not a “crime”, however. The simple solution, considering how large a portion of the foreigners here are foreign workers, would be to have Koreans give up on sending their kids to a good university and becoming salarymen and fashion designers, and instead instill in them the desire to work in a good ol’ small or medium-sized factory. If they’re not willing to do that, then they’re just going to have to learn to deal with it - at least until unification comes, when there’ll be lots of cheap labor to exploit in the north. Of course, then there will be a whole new set of ‘foreigners’ to complain about…
Funny, but even with all the bad press foreigners have been receiving lately I have had more Koreans saying “hello” to me and smiling at me lately. In fact, in the last two weeks I think I have had more people say hello to me on the street than in the past 4 months combined. I can’t even remember what the last thing was that put their collective “panties” in a bundle and led to the notice to give all foreigners the cold shoulder. Apparently though, the executive order had been rescinded and they can all start acting like humans again. Until next time that is.
Every time the presence of a foreigner causes a Korean female to gasp “무서워” a crime is committed.
If you feel like reading something that’ll make you shake your head in disgust (or perhaps get a more extreme reaction), then the Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers website is the place for you!
http://www.njustice.org/
They even link to the English Spectrum cafe over at naver. So nice to see the Citizen’s Movement for Expelling Illegal Foreign Language Teachers and the Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers getting along so well. I’m sure they’ll help make Korea a much better place.
The Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers looks almost exactly like one of my favorite anti-immigration group (that is, favorite to laugh at), Team America (http://www.teamamericapac.org/index.php)
. Chilling what a group of determined people can do and influence in these days.
It is time for Koreans to wake up, heed those in Western societies who’ve long experimented with multiculturalism screaming that diversity doesn’t work, re-think foolish immigration policies before its too late, and start cracking down on foreigners hard.
bumfromkorea,
I don’t think you have to worry about being deported.
What’s there to clarify? I didn’t say that Korean xenophobia isn’t troublesome, is “warm” and “fuzzy.” I objected to the fact that for (it seems many) commenters on this blog there is no difference between racism and xenophobia. I personally find the confusion offensive. If you can’t distinguish between the two, it’s likely you don’t know what racism really is, its profound cultural and psychological dimensions as an experience that, I believe, go far beyond intergroup antagonism or divisionism, and which I also believe is far more dangerous and negative. Conceptually xenophobia and racism are quite different, should mean different things for a person experiencing them (though, yes, there is some intersection), and spell different etiologies for the kinds of behavioral crap we can see - be it a “fuck you!” given randomly on the streets or the pieces of irresponsible journalism given in newspapers being discussed on this page.
re-think foolish immigration policies before its too late, and start cracking down on foreigners hard.
So what does ‘cracking down hard’ mean? Do we really need more foreigners burning to death in Korean immigration prisons?
The Korean government has only itself to blame for there being so many illegal foreign workers here. If you’re going to force people to take out loans to pay $10,000 or more just to come to Korea to work, and then allow them to work for pitiful wages as “trainees” (not workers, thus labor rights don’t apply to them) and allow them to stay for only two years, making it impossible to pay back what they owe, they’re obviously going to overstay their visas. The companies were happy to hire them and the government was happy to keep the companies happy and look the other way, except for high profile ‘crackdowns’. Under the new system, things have improved slightly, but the contours of the previous system are still recognizable.
Koreans should consider themselves lucky that the vast majority of those who have been badly treated here want only to work and send money home to their families. If even a fraction of those people held a grudge and wanted to repay it, then the Weekly Hankook Magazine would have something to bitch about. As it is, the most radical thing some migrant workers have done was to start a union, and in the end, after 6 years, the Seoul High Court recognized it. One would assume, considering the prominence of photos of migrant demonstrations on The Citizen’s Alliance for Countermeasures for Foreign Laborers, that the good Alliance isn’t too happy about this. Shucks though, wherever did the migrant workers learn to demonstrate like that? Talk about going native!
“If you can’t distinguish between the two, it’s likely you don’t know what racism really is, its profound cultural and psychological dimensions as an experience that, I believe, go far beyond intergroup antagonism or divisionism, and which I also believe is far more dangerous and negative. “
I’m guessing you took a few ethnic studies courses back in college.
If an American soldier in Korea barely escapes from the clutches of an angry mob, he shakily lights a cigarette, smiles sardonically, and says “No sweat — merely a bunch of incompetent xenophobes”.
OTOH — if his “battle buddy” got himself thoroughly worked over by the same mob, the appropriate comment later (while holding his head and groaning): “Man — those racists were really ‘on target’ today.”
Do you have any idea what’s driving this recent negative coverage?
A disturbingly sharp rise in crimes committed by foreigners, perhaps?
Which repeats the ignorance I’ve been noting. Those who don’t know what racism is (and, sorry guys, but they tend to be caucasian folk) think of these issues in terms of quantitative degrees as if xenophobia is violence that doesn’t physically hurt and that racism is the kind that does, leaving x # of more bandages. That’s just silly. There’s such a thing as xenophobe murder. There’s even such a thing as regionalist violence between groups of sports fans fighting in pride of their local teams. We, however, shouldn’t call that racism if it’s not, even if the groups involved seem to be demarcatable by race.
No. I would never waste my time or money that way.
Xenophopia is a cultural attitude while racism is a personal one, no?
Semantastic!!
It’s important that we label our haters correctly.
So what does ‘cracking down hard’ mean?
Obviously, foreigners who run amok in Korea do not have a healthy enough fear of the police, nor the penal system, nor the prisons, which sound incredibly tame compared to the ones here in the US.
The Korean government has only itself to blame for there being so many illegal foreign workers here. If you’re going to force people to take out loans to pay $10,000 or more just to come to Korea to work…
While I do not think the Korean gov ever held a gun to any foreigner’s head and forced them to make all those choices, nor does a sense of victimization (justified nor not) absolves oneself of criminal wrongdoings, I do agree that much of the blame rests with the decision-makers, the collusion of incompetent government and greedy big business concerns who don’t seem to mind flooding society with all manner of undesirables just to have cheaper labor. Policymakers in Korea have even less of an excuse since they can draw upon the collective experience of Western nations “who been there and done that” to know what can go wrong.
Again, I’m not surprised. The fact that average Koreans in general don’t say something about this kind crap says a lot about Koreans. If this happened to Koreans in the US, they would be saying Americans (white people) are all card carrying members of the KKK. There’d be protests and calls over being victimized . In the end, Korea will probably be squeezed out by China and Japan anyway. It seems to already be happeneing. I say keep being xenophobic Koreans, you’ve gone as far you are going to go anyway. Leave Korea to the Netizen Kims of the world.
“I’m guessing you took a few ethnic studies courses back in college.”
lol
It is ironic, two months after Koreans were hypersensitive about any mention of Cho’s nationality in the media and fretted about a post-Cho backlash in the US, to see such blatantly xenophobic media reports whipping up hysteria about white English teachers and South Asian laborers. How is it that a people with 5,000 years of continuous civilization have such short memories?
Sonagi,
That’s a bit harsh. I think this is the case of a few people feeling threatened by the country’s rapidly changing demographics. Instead of opening up their minds, they try to poison the well so that Koreans will think twice about marrying foreigners.
Might I assume that by “undesirables” and “what can go wrong,” you’re not referring to Cho Seung-hui?
The Hankook Weakly is one of those tabloid rags that mixes hard news with celebrity gossip and crap like this because they know their audience eats it up. The shifty Japanese, the arrogant U.S., the lawless foreigner, all the stock stereotypes get recycled in trash newspapers like this, every week.
From what I’ve seen, the “average Korean” has no strong opinions about non-Koreans one way or the other, it’s the media projecting national insecurities in their usual childish way.
All that rags like this are good for is pictures:
http://photoi.hankooki.com/sli....._code=0105
It’s nice to see tempers well under control this week, after last week’s slugfest in the thread on Rain’s PR manager.
In any case, labor, in every market, will always eventually equilibrate around the laws of supply and demand. I asked my part-time housekeeper last month about costs for going full-time with someone from her country. She said the ones on legal visas get about 700,000 a month, the illegals get about 1.2 million. Therefore, the true value of such labor is 1.2 million. In that sense, they are ‘forced’ into being illegal, forced by the market that is. Of course the great majority want to live harmoniously in their adopted society, but once you’re illegal in terms of your visa and employment status, you simply have less to lose by being illegal in other ways, too. Legalizing migrant workers makes them safer, better, wealthier and more productive citizens.
Inevitably, when issues of racism towards foreigners in Korea (on both sides of the Oreo) come up on this blog, the knee-jerk response from Koreans/gyopos is generally denial, minimization, or pointing fingers elsewhere. But after that is torn apart quickly and efficiently, we usually hear the “give us some time, we’re just becoming multi-cultural, things will get better” rationalization/excuse/explanation over and over again. In fact, bumfromkorea went there most recently in the Rain thread:
And anyone who’s been around the Korea forums knows that it’s a pretty common response from those that aren’t ignorant enough to go the deflection/denial route and are actually willing to admit to the reality of the situation on the ground.
But what I find puzzling is why those same people are so optimistic in believing that more foreigners in Korea and more interaction with foreigners by Koreans will equal less racism, when in all likelihood it’s probably going to lead to much more, even on a relative scale.
Articles like this, and tv shows like the Olive TV hit-job, and the flood of racist paranoia last year with the English Spectrum fiasco and the public/press reaction to it seem to point to a future headed in that direction. If a foreign population of 1% is attracting attention like this, imagine 5%, or 10%. It’ll give you the shivers.
Far from getting better, I would suggest that the more “time” we give it, and the more multi-cultural Korea becomes, the worse it’s going to get.
Lnkd, what does your housekeeper’s legal status have to do with Koreans’ perception of foreigners?
A while ago I watched a documentary on “Arirang” concerning the worker trainee program in South Korea. One of the Korean factory owners was standing up in front of the foreign workers boasting about what a success Korea is and how they will be fortunate enough to observe how Koreans achieved their success. He told them to take this formula for success back to their poor countries so they could become like Korea. It was the most arrogant bunch of BS I had heard in a long time. Especially when you consider this person gets away with paying his worker trainees a fraction of what he pays his Korean workers. I was also irritated (though not surprised) that a Korean would try and steal the credit for this particular formula for success. Sorry, we invented slavery in America first! It is ours! It is ours! It is ours!
Wouldn’t it more likely be the other way around?
How Koreans achieved their success: get billions of dollars and yen in low-interest loans, grants and compensation for colonization (and spend the latter on infrastructure). Close your markets to free trade and allow a handful of families to monopolize domestic industries. Mobilize the country to work for peanuts with hollow nationalist rhetoric. Get a couple of dictators to bash on the unions. Rinse and repeat.
Link
I was thinking of Netizen’s comments in #23, about the potential for government policy to correct what he sees as the problem of too many migrant workers.
I’m saying that government policy can’t control markets. If factory owners (or employers of housekeepers) are willing to offer 1.2 mil to get legal workers away from jobs that they are earning 700,000 for, then that is what will happen. With this being the reality, it is then the government’s choice whether to perpetuate the illegal status of the workers, or to legalize them (overly simplified, but you get the gist).
The disparity between the two wages rates is the greatest reason for the number of illegal workers. They come for on a legal visa, quickly get a better offer, scram on their legal employer, causing ill will, of course, but they make a lot more money. But then they are stuck here, because of their illegal status. It makes it hard to monitor them, deliver public services to them, survey them, protect them from exploitation and police them when they commit crimes. Legalizing them solves a lot of problems. Just get the American, oops, Saudi, oops, Malaysian, oops, German, oops, Korean public to realize this. Good luck.
An economic historian supports Michael’s assertion in #35. Even those who don’t read the biz pages may enjoy the Historical Context section on pages 4-6.
http://www.iie.com/publications/wp/wp05-4.pdf
I’m surprised in the first place that Koreans would turn down a housekeeping job that paid 1.2 million won. That would be decent pay for a college student or retired person. I know something similar occurs in the U.S. but the per capita income for S.K. is much less.
“Policymakers in Korea have even less of an excuse since they can draw upon the collective experience of Western nations “who been there and done that” to know what can go wrong.”
One would hate to in any way follow the examples set by Western nations, basket case, pariah, failed state countries of the world that they are…
This fear and disdain for foreigners in Korea is so played out. These days when someone says something like “There were a lot of foreigners in (Itaewon / Hongdae / the movie theater / whatever…) so I was nervous.” I have started responding, “Yes, all foreigners are very dangerous. You should just stick with Koreans.”
It is time for Koreans to wake up, heed those in Western societies who’ve long experimented with multiculturalism screaming that diversity doesn’t work, re-think foolish immigration policies before its too late, and start cracking down on foreigners hard.
Mr. Kim, a few questions.
1. Are you an imigrant to the U.S? First or second generation?
2. Do you include Koreans who have immigrated to other countries in your “failed experiment with multiculturalism” position?
3. Since you advocate “cracking down hard” on “foreigners” - and not specifically those foriegners who commit crimes - how do you feel the Korean diaspora should be collectively treated in the wake of the Cho Seung-hui massacre?
4. Are you a troll?
Because those of us with long-term, objective experience in Korea can cite palpable forward progress. It’s one of the reasons we like it here in the Land of the Future. We extrapolate the incremental effects of improvements in infrastructure, cleanliness, availability of consumer products, fair play, and so forth to our experience with Korean racism. Yes, Korea sucks. But the suckitude is less and less with each passing day.
hoju_saram–people are saying “Netizen Kim” is actually bluejives, and if so he now has this humorless troll schtick going. He once had a personality and wrote about interracial dating and learning Hebrew, and now he’s playing a schlemeil, sad.
I see. Sounds like a hoot. And whatever happened to that Pawi fellow?
And now, we’ve got Thai gangs in Cheonan!
http://www.cbs.co.kr/Nocut/Show.asp?IDX=537622
Oh, and SBS ran a piece on the ghetto that apparently is Ansan last week as well.
Brendon #43 - that it so true! I have to admit that I also feel some sense of accomplishment for having made it through more difficult times to this better present.
So, does this mean that the move to Prague is off?
How come we have Thai gangs but no good Thai restaurants?
#43–Korea is improving, the rate just seems glacial.
Sometimes when I read the newspapers I forget what era I am. As a person who spends a lot of time reading old newspapers and documents I am surprised at just how similar Choson Korea (Corea) in 1880s is with modern Korea of 2007. It is the same old thing - we must protect Korea from the foreingers. I am sure that in 100 years someone will come back to this blog and use it for one of their articles. History repeats itself.
It only seems glacial because you’re on the glacier. Anyway, slow as they were, the glaciers levelled large parts of North America. Have you ever been to Kansas?
Are you saying Korea will look like Kansas in the future? Kee-rist amighty.
Actually it does seem a little better here, I thought it was just me getting more oblivious but maybe the glacier is indeed melting.
I spent two years at Fort Riley, Kansas - please don’t let my sparkling Korea get as boring as that!
“She said the ones on legal visas get about 700,000 a month, the illegals get about 1.2 million.”
“Wouldn’t it more likely be the other way around?”
Actually, it is pretty easy to explain how illegal foreign workers are getting more than legal foreign workers in Korea.
At a minimum, it probably costs an employer 1.2 million for a Korean worker in a factory. Tack on taxes, health care and pension and it could easily come out costing the employer 1.5 million per month for a legal Korean worker.
If a Korean employer can get a legal foreign worker (making 700,000 won) to come over and work for them for 1.2 million illegally (we all know they won’t be paying taxes, health care or pension on an illegal foreign worker) the Korean boss pockets the difference between 1.5 million for the legal Korean worker and the 1.2 million they are paying for the illegal foreign worker. For all Korean’s complaining, the government isn’t allowing enough legal foreign workers into Korea at the present to satisfy the demand for them and this why this problem exists in part.
But that is ok as we all know the old Korean saying, “A chon won saved is a Soju earned!”
Hell of a lot easier to clean up a city or build a Krispy Kreme than it is to change a stubborn, well-entrenched mindset. I suppose you’re also counting on those incremental improvements to lead to law-abiding drivers and an end to corruption. Good luck with that.
So maybe one day your daughter’s great-granddaughter might be able to go to a public school without freak status if that extrapolation works out as planned and on schedule? Or will she also be consigned to a $15k per year international joint?
Having spent the better part of the Clinton 2 and George W 1 terms in the land of suckitude, and still visiting on business yearly since then, I’m well aware of what sucks, what doesn’t, and what the rate of improvement has been. I just think it’s a bit naive and hopelessly optimistic to conflate traditional attitudes and mindset with construction and cheese imports.
But then again, I also think it’s naive and hopelessly optimistic to expect Iraq to be peaceful anytime soon, so either I’m off my fucking rocker or you’ve got a direct line to the best fortune teller in Seoul.
Who ever said that it was rational? Hell, if I were to base every decision on rationality, I would have pulled up stakes here years ago. Of course I’ll never know what my life would have been like had I left years ago, but I can definitely say that the decision to stay has been of significant economic and social benefit.
I now have a far wider range of business and social contacts here in Korea than I ever did in my hometown (Seattle). I enjoy work opportunities of greater variety, and am remunerated for them to a greater degree than I ever was in Seattle. And, for us most importantly, my wife and I can realistically plan for lives to be spent both here and in the US, with both our extended families.
That’s what fools like bluejives and abcdefg can not understand about non-Koreans who come here - that people do not always come to Korea in search of a ‘Korean Dream’, yet sometimes discover that it is possible to build a meaniful, enjoyable life here.
Michael, Korea hadn’t really had much access to low-interest loans until a few years ago. The boys on the Wall Street had considered Korea a sort of sub-prime borrower, so to speak, which I think was silly but understandable, given that they didn’t really know much about Korea.
Although I don’t know the exact figure of the colonisation compensation in the 60’s, I don’t think it would have contributed much to where Korea is today. It was just one-off payment anyhow, as I understand it.
“I’m afraid to walk around at night. With herds of foreigners swarming around frightening me, I’m also scared I might be harmed. I firmly warn even my middle school daughter.”
Sounds like a typicl Irish-American mother in the South Bronx late 1960’s.
A very Kennedyesque way of thinking.
“We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.“
“Although I don’t know the exact figure of the colonisation compensation in the 60’s, I don’t think it would have contributed much to where Korea is today. It was just one-off payment anyhow, as I understand it.”
Actually, Babarian, the US gave around 3-4 billion in aid and Japan also gave huge amounts as well. Both also gave plenty of low cost loans, though I don’t know the exact amounts, except that aid was substantial. You’re right, Japan’s payment for colonisation was a one-off (as far as I know), but it was decent, I think at around 500 million or so? Someone please correct me. And Japan helped out much more than this with low cost loans. They also picked up the slack when US aid dropped off in the 70s. So all in all, aid and low cost loans to Korea was huge and a significant factor in helping Korea to develop.
Japan gave South Korea 500 million in aid and the low cost loans, or ~12+ billion in todays dollars.
Korea then earned a pretty penny from the U.S. supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam (some goods, construction, etc. – in much the same way Japan reaped the benefits of the Korean War), which also dramatically helped the ROK economy.
I think we obviously disagree on this one with Snow and Richarson.
Richardson, I don’t know how you got the figure of 12+ billion, but my calculation using the inflation calculator from the US dep of labour(www.bls.gov/cpi/#data) comes up with the figure of 3.3 billion for the half a billion of 1965. I wouldn’t consider that as a decent amout for the size of a country of Korea.
Yes, Korea received US aids after the Korean War. Let me take the Snow’s figure of 3-4 billion. It was provided over the period of something like 25 years or so, if my understading is correct,from the 50’s to 70’s. That means 100-150 million a year, which means roughly half a billion to a billion a year in todays value. Again I don’t think it’s a lot of money. If you give that amount to a country, say Afganistan, I don’t think that would be really a lot of money.
“It only seems glacial because you’re on the glacier. Anyway, slow as they were, the glaciers levelled large parts of North America. Have you ever been to Kansas?”
Kansas was never covered by glaciers. During the last ice age, glaciers blanketed Canada and reached down into the Great Lakes states, North Dakota, and Montana, even parts of Iowa but never actually covered Kansas. Post-glacial terrain is actually slightly hilly, not flat, and dotted with lakes. See maps here: http://www.museum.state.il.us/....._maps.html
and here: http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/
The loess soil of the midwest was created after the glaciers receded, but it was wind that picked up this sandy soil and deposited it in western Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas.
http://www.kcwildlands.org/old.....nder11.htm
So why is Kansas so flat? Well, I don’t have the answer to that one.
On the bright side the Koreans loathe themselves even more.
Well, that’s because you’re full of nationalist BS. Korea’s population in 1965 was 28,700,000, with a per-capita GDP of $100. If you take Japan’s $500 million and divide by 28,700,000 you get a per-capita aid/reparations figure of $17.50 a head. That’s 17% of GDP, by the way. Are you saying that’s not significant?
Because there was extra money around, that money could be invested in things which produced the prosperity we enjoy today.
There is a pretty good Congressional Budget Office report, freely available online, comparing Korea to the Philippines, and the report pegs foreign aid as comprising more than 75% of total domestic investment in the period 1960-62, still almost 50% in 1965, and tapering off to pretty insignificant levels by the 1970s. If somebody gave you a 75% tuition scholarship, it would make a difference in whether or not you could afford school.
You’re absolutely correct in direct 1965 to 2007 dollar conversions, and I also forgot about the $300 million in private bank credits (in 1965), for a total package of $800 million. Above I misstated the circumstances of the ~$12+ billion plus figure, which is for what a similar compensation from Japan to North Korea would be, adjusted for population and inflation. Others (Noland) go even higher:
http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/01june13_nkjapan.pdf
In the last decade $10 billion was the generally accepted amount Japan likely would pay to normalize relations with North Korea, but that figure would now be closer to $12 billion.
- - - -
But you underestimate the impact of U.S. aid. As far as U.S. aid to South Korea, it was vast, more than Snow suggests – to date only Egypt has received more aid from the U.S. Check the graph on page 49 of this PDF:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/43x.....Entire.pdf
Other interesting notes:
During the 1950s, U.S. economic assistance represented 69 percent of imports and
77 percent of all saving in South Korea. (page 20, PDF page 57)
In some years during the 1950s, the United States provided a third or more of the total budget for the government. In 1956, U.S. support for the Korean government’s budget reached 58 percent of total expenditures.42 (page 21, PDF page 59)
U.S. military assistance to Korea between 1953 and 1960—approximately $8.7
billion in 1997 dollars. . . (page 23, PDF page 63)
If foreigners were toiling long hours in green groceries, delis, and dry cleaners (while invariably getting robbed or being sued for millions of bucks for lost pants, as the case may be) and generally minding their own business, then there would be little to speak of. But obviously foreigners in Korea are so NOT like, say, Koreans in the US.
I actually believe that Korea should not turn itself into a tower of babel. Unregulated multiculturalism leads to misunderstanding, conflicts, riots, grievance politics, “political correctness”, and other Western horrors.
BTW, none of the opinions I stated are very far off the mark from what some of you, especially the more melanin-challenged ones, would state regarding immigration issues concerning Hispanics, Muslims, and other assorted brown aliens in your home countries. So whence the hypocrisy?
Immigration by Fred Reed
What if we are wrong? What if different kinds of people just plain don’t want to live together? What if federal bullying, stamping our feet, and holding our breath and turning blue won’t change things?
A powerful current in today’s compulsorily appropriate thought is that hostility between groups is anomalous and remediable, an exception to natural law – that it results from poor socialization, defective character, or conservative politics. If only we understood each other we would then love one another. Such is the theory.
But we don’t love each other.
When the desired affections fail to develop, which is the usual outcome, we try compulsion. People must love each other, under penalty of law. Any expression of displeasure with another group is punished. We brainwash our children with an almost North Korean intensity to persuade them that groups should cuddle and value one another.
And still it doesn’t work. Might it not be just a bad idea?
If one looked around the world, one might reasonably conclude that different groups should be separated, not coerced into proximity. Note that most of the internal violence that afflicts nations occurs between ethnic, racial, and religious groups – not between rich and poor, between those who bowl and those who golf, or between capitalists and socialists. Would it not make sense, when possible, to separate disparate populations?
In the United States, serious violence – riots, burning of cities, not to mention a heavy (and carefully disguised) element of interracial targeting in crime – takes place along the black/white/Latino fault lines, with occasional black/Jewish fighting in New York. Again, race, religion, ethnicity. Different kinds of people don’t get along. Why do we not recognize this?
The pattern is universal. In France, horrified fluttering recently arose when Jean-Marie Le Pen, a very anti-immigration sort of fellow, got 17% of the vote in presidential elections. How surprised should we be? France has some five million North African Mohammedans. Antagonism is predictable. When the French were in North Africa, the North Africans didn’t like it. Now that the North Africans are in France, the French don’t like it. Is there a pattern here?
Tension is high in Germany between Germans and Turks. In India, Mussulmans and Hindus riot bloodily. In Ceylon, Tamils and Sinhalese; in Iraq, Kurds and Iraqis; in Ireland, Protestants and Catholics, in Yugoslavia…in Burundi…. Canadians and Quebecois are not killing each other, but they think about it.
Given that the mixing of disparate peoples leads with remarkable consistency to trouble, and that the price of the trouble can be high, might it not be reasonable to take this into account when making policy? Might it not be wiser to permit, or even to encourage, people to live with their own? In particular, might it not be desirable to discourage immigration from anywhere to anywhere instead of encouraging it in the name of fuzz-headed adolescent enthusiasm, and thus preparing the way for conflagration?
For some it is too late. The United States has lost control of its borders and lacks the political will to do…well, anything. We amount to a dead whale decaying on the beach of civilization. Other countries may yet have time.
We are, of course, unendingly told that to favor separation is to be racist, hateful, and reactionary. It is always easier to call one’s questioners names than to answer their questions. But…need one be a racist to favor a comfortable distancing? Or is to do so just cultural good manners and wise politics?
Originally, racism meant a belief that one race was inferior to another, usually one’s own. The street definition is a dislike of another because of his race.
I do not regard myself as racially superior to, say, the Japanese. I certainly don’t dislike them for neglecting to be white. I’ve spent time in the Japanese hinterland, crawled the mountains, eaten in remote noodle stands. I like the culture and the people. Passing through Tokyo last week, I reflected (as always) at their superior efficiency and civility. I have no racist notions, by either definition, of the Japanese.
But do I think we should encourage heavy immigration of Japanese (assuming they wanted to come), or they of Americans? No. A very bad idea. Antagonism would result. The differences are too great.
It works this way. Suppose that you are a considerate traveler, American, and go to a foreign town – pick your country — unaccustomed to outsiders. The likelihood is that you will be treated with courtesy and some degree of curiosity. Should you attempt to learn the language and take an apartment, the people will be flattered by the former and unconcerned by the latter.
Should other Americans come (or Germans, or Chinese), the locals will be unconcerned – at first. The early arrivals will per force adapt to the local culture However, as the numbers reach a certain point, visitors will begin to be seen as invaders. They will cluster together, come to constitute an alien enclave and then, without intending it, to impose themselves on the natives. The ways of the immigrants will inevitably conflict with the ways of the natives.
As an example, American are noisier than most Orientals, prefer informal camaraderie to formal courtesy, and have different notions of proper manners in public. Behavior that is informal and friendly in one society is oafish in another. It isn’t a question of right or wrong, but of expectations.
Soon interests will diverge, hostility appear, incidents occur, and retaliation follow. Us-agin-them thinking is natural to people.
Note that in the United States, when blacks move into white neighborhoods, nothing happens – at first. When the proportion of blacks reaches a certain point – thirty percent is a figure I’ve often seen – the remaining whites flee. The same happens in reverse. When white gentrifiers move into the black city, they clump together. When they become conspicuous by their plenitude, resentment arises among the black population.
By contrast, when groups have their own territory and do not too much come into contact, feelings improve. Neither side feels in danger of being dominated by the other. Thus homogeneous countries tend to be happier countries.
All of this is obvious. And yet we follow policies sure to cause unending trouble, certainly cultural suicide, perhaps catastrophe, because of bullheaded insistence that things be as we wish, not as they are. The spirit of Marxism is much in evidence here – the view that people are amorphous, anonymous, barely sentient putty to be shaped by soulless theoreticians. (Can there be a more contemptuous word for humanity than “the masses”?) For all of this, I think, we will pay a price.
“If foreigners were toiling long hours in green groceries, delis, and dry cleaners (while invariably getting robbed or being sued for millions of bucks for lost pants, as the case may be) and generally minding their own business, then there would be little to speak of. But obviously foreigners in Korea are so NOT like, say, Koreans in the US.”
Ah, Net Kim, you made the common mistake of thinking that all foreigners are Westerners. The foreign peril whom the weekly Hangook is sounding the alarm over hail from Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, and other developing countries. They toil long hours in dirty factories, only to be cheated out of fair wages and sent back home missing a finger or two. You are right in a way - foreigners in Korea are not like, say, Koreans in the US.
You’re right. In Korea, foreigners are generally toiling long hours in small-to-medium sized factories in dreary industrial suburbs under a corrupt industrial trainee system (while invariably getting shafted on their meager wages, beaten [and, if female, raped] by their Korean bosses, and threatened with deportation if they try to claim compensation for workplace injuries) and generally minding their own business even without the slightest hope of getting permanent residency or citizenship. And, if by “not like Korean in the US,” you mean that that, by and large, foreigners in Korea haven’t come to take advantage of the Korean pension system, to avoid the draft, or to escape recently enacted anti-prostitution laws in their own country, or that, as far as I know, no foreigner here has walked onto a Korean university campus and shot the place up, you’re probably right.
Netizen:
You are too pessimistic about the inevitability of interracial tension.
“Tension is high in Germany between Germans and Turks.” (your statement)
You (and everybody else here) know that I am not exactly a fan of fundamentalist Islam - and, indeed, tension between Muslims and non-Muslims does exist in Germany. But Islam is not a racial or ethnic but a religous-cultural concept.
One of my best friends is an Arab (from Saudi-Arabia !), who had been brought up as a Muslim but, upon his arrival in Germany, decided to become an atheist / agnostic.
He studied Pharmacology, then got his Ph.D., and he now works as a research team leader at Bayer, a major German company in the field, commands high respect from his colleagues and from the people in his neighbourhood who even elected him to the post of “Neighbourhood Spokesman” - and only the wacked care about his Middle Eastern origins. Most do not even know about it since he chose to assume his Italian wife’s name - judging him from his looks he could just as well be of southern European as of Arabian origin. There is hardly any visible racial or ethnic difference…
Of course his integration was facilitated by the fact that he had, in his Saudi-Arabian High School, studied German for five years. In contrast to him, most immigrants in Germany (and even their children born here) never manage to overcome the linguistic hurdle. And then their religion tends to turn into an additional obstacle to their successful integration into this country’s mainstream society. Not so in his case…
It’s not the race - it is the culture that matters…
Robert,
The rest of your post was terrific follow-up rejoinder to Net Kim’s comment, but this
“no foreigner here has walked onto a Korean university campus and shot the place up, you’re probably right.”
was off the mark. I mentioned Cho earlier but in the context of discussing media coverage of crimes by foreign nationals and reactions to that coverage.
“no foreigner here has walked onto a Korean university campus and shot the place up, you’re probably right.”
For one thing, Cho was an American for all intents and purposes (never mind his citizenship status as I know people with Permanent Residence status in the US who are as American as apple pie). Secondly, there’s no easy access to guns for civilians in Korea, be they Koreans or foreigners. Can’t say the same for the US.
> regarding #68 and #69
Well, no shit! Illegal status begets abuse. But who chose to overstay their visa expiration, and hence, break the law? It all sounds very familiar. Doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re a migrant Mexican picking lettuce under the hot California sun or a so-called “3D worker” from Bangladesh in a factory in Korea…basically its a case of “same shit, different country”.
BTW, Congress voted not to grant the illegals amnesty with the Immigration Reform Bill. What is your opinion on that? Most Americans seem to hate the fact that the illegals are here illegally, are very threatened by the criminal elements, the gangs, etc. But would you call this “xenophobia”? Hell no. It’s only xenophobia as long as Koreans are the ones doing the hand-wringing about the foreigners and you find yourselves on the wrong side of the debate. Relativistic bullshit nonsense.
“For one thing, Cho was an American for all intents and purposes (never mind his citizenship status as I know people with Permanent Residence status in the US who are as American as apple pie). “
And I know green card holders who identify themselves by their country of origin. A close college friend was born in India, moved to the US when she was six, educated completely in US schools yet chose to retain her Indian citizenship and identify herself as Indian, not American. Culturally, she was American and probably not very Indian, but I respected her identity choice. Cho cannot speak for himself. However, a young man raised by two non-English speaking Korean parents isn’t “as American as apple pie.” Rather, he was as American as LA galbi. He was a hyphenated American in contrast to fully assimilated Americans like my family, who have no other cultural background. Cultures and languages can be additive - that is, being raised in a Korean family does not make one “less” American - but it is dishonest to ignore Cho’s early years in Korea and family upbringing. Korean-born, American-raised actress Kim Yunjin is identified as Korean and gee, isn’t it funny that nobody complains about that? Mentally disturbed Cho’s act of violence had nothing to do with either cultural background. As pointed out in the Cho threads, the deadliest shooting rampage in world history was carried out by a Korean police officer.
“A close college friend was born in India, moved to the US when she was six, educated completely in US schools yet chose to retain her Indian citizenship and identify herself as Indian, not American. Culturally, she was American and probably not very Indian, but I respected her identity choice.”
Yes, her choice has got to be respected - yet I cannot help finding it somewhat unfortunate. People do not always make rational choices, no kidding…
“Cultures and languages can be additive - that is, being raised in a Korean family does not make one “less” American - but it is dishonest to ignore Cho’s early years in Korea and family upbringing. Korean-born, American-raised actress Kim Yunjin is identified as Korean and gee, isn’t it funny that nobody complains about that?”
Sonagi hits the nail on the head - this amazing difference in perception is indeed ironic…
“BTW, Congress voted not to grant the illegals amnesty with the Immigration Reform Bill. What is your opinion on that? “
The immigration bill’s languishing in the Senate reflects unresolved conflicts over details like the number of annual temporary worker permits and the proposed point system. The impediments to the bill’s passage have been communicated clearly in the mainstream media, but apparently, you’re too busy attacking non-ethnic Koreans at the Marmot’s Hole to keep informed about important national issues like the immigration bill.
“Most Americans seem to hate the fact that the illegals are here illegally, are very threatened by the criminal elements, the gangs, etc. But would you call this “xenophobia”? Hell no. It’s only xenophobia as long as Koreans are the ones doing the hand-wringing about the foreigners and you find yourselves on the wrong side of the debate. Relativistic bullshit nonsense.”
Sorry to burst your bubble of self-loathing, my fellow American, but polls consistently show that we Americans:
1) support a path to legalization for undocumented residents of the US
2) view immigration as a net positive
3) believe that illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans don’t want
http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm
There is a vocal minority of Americans like yourself who think immigration is dragging the country down, but fortunately, a majority of Americans are pragmatic and open-minded enough to accept even those who came uninvited.
Hey netishitzen Kim - were you one of the netishitzen Kims who helped drive a 16 year old to kill herself or you a different netishitzen Kim? If I’ve made an error, please forgive me. There’s so many netishitzens out there.
Oh dammit, I spelled netizen wrong! Sorry…it happens after a long day at the dry cleaners.
The immigration bill’s languishing in the Senate reflects unresolved conflicts over details like the number of annual temporary worker permits and …
Didn’t want to get into tedious details. Bills, in these evil times, are at least a 1000 pages long and can rival the tax code in complexity. Point is, it’s highly unlikely to pass.
but polls consistently show that we Americans:
1) support a path to legalization for undocumented residents of the US
That is politically-correct white-washed fiction. In terms of what they REALLY think, most American believe any form of amnesty is “rewarding bad behavior”. Furthermore, most illegals are believed to be poor, uneducated, bottom-of-the-barrel sorts who will put enormous stress on social services, be a burden on the average taxpayer, and implode Medicaid/Social Security in the future (as if that’s not already going to happen anyway).
3) believe that illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans don’t want
Tell that to the working-class Blacks. They happen to think a bit differently.
There is a vocal minority of Americans like yourself who think immigration is dragging the country down, but fortunately, a majority of Americans are pragmatic and open-minded enough to accept even those who came uninvited.
I have no opinion one way or another on the current state of immigration in the US because a lot of what has happened is irreversible. But I do believe that Korea should avoid a similar fate and nip this thing in the bud before it is too late. Increase in foreigner crime is a harbinger of things to come, a warning signal. Opening the floodgates of immigration may bring temporary benefits mostly for businesses in terms of labor supply but carries enormous hidden social costs.
bulgasari…dude, you got issues.
bulgarsari, I do not know from whence comes your spastic and completely random marvel of irrelevance but I forgive you.